Out Olympian Gus Kenworthy posted a photo on his Instagram while mentioning he’s looking to update his LinkedIn account and needed new resume pics. Umm…woof. In the photo, snapped by photog Brian Kaminski, Gus is resting in repose in a pair of short shorts, washboard abs on display along with the perfect amount of fur. The pic was accompanied by the tongue-in-cheek caption, “My friend @briankaminski was kind enough to come over yesterday and take some pictures for my LinkedIn.” Can I just say, “You’re hired, Gus!” Kaminski also shared a pic from the shoot teasing there are more to come.
Gus has been keeping a lower profile on social media during the pandemic than in prior years. In April, he shared that the isolation of coronavirus lockdown had taken some toll on his mental health. At the same time, he announced he was doing personalized greetings for fans in order to raise money for first responders in the health crisis. In December 2019, the Olympic silver medalist announced he was switching from Team USA to Team Great Britain (he was born in England) with the hopes of representing the United Kingdom in the 2022 Winter Olympics. Clearly, Gus is keeping in top-shape. Of course, there was that trip to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes back in September… 😉
(Via Stephen Amell’s Instagram) Some news items you might have missed: • KIT212: Kenneth wonders as to how much ‘seasonal sentiment’ is really attached to some InstaHunky posts like the above pic from Arrow star Stephen Amell? • Boy Culture: Matt Rettenmund’s list of his ‘Top 50 Sitcoms’ is pure gold – I especially agree with his Top 10. • The Tonight Show: Jimmy Fallon and Andrew Rannells recap the year 2020 through Broadway songs like “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, “Memory” from Cats, and “My Shot” from Hamilton.
• Orlando Sentinel: Florida man coughed, sneezed, spit throughout a Best Buy after refusing mask. He told the police he’s “been going through a lot this year and got carried away.” • World Of Wonder: Porn performer Reno Gold donated a week’s worth of his online earnings – over $27,000 – to the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which is awesome. p.s. if you do the math, Reno makes over $1 million a year, so, wow… • Instagram: A 21-year-old fashion/lifestyle photographer in Mexico City shared the emotional moment he told his mother he was marrying his boyfriend and his religious mother denounced him for being gay. The video quickly went viral. “The day I die you are gonna be the one who kills me because I’m always thinking about all the stuff you’ve done wrong,” she told him. “You do wrong. You sin. Think really hard about what you’re doing. Think about it and don’t sin for Satan.”
Ignacio Pérez Rey (via Instagram) Checking in with the hunks of Insta… First up, Ignacio Pérez Rey (above) continues to prove Madrid, Spain, is a beautiful place we all need to visit (as long as the views look like this). Ramses Principe proved that you can look like he does AND eat pancakes (or at least pose in front of them).
Rodiney Santiago took a dive into the difference between physical and mental beauty. ” Instagram is full of beautiful hopeless romantics who’ve spent all their time on their appearance and not enough time on the mind.”
Bremen Menelli (via Instagram) Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: Bremen Menelli (above) proves that being fully clothed can be sexy, too. Follow him on Instagram here. • OUT: Noted lesbian-centric website AfterEllen, which has become a bastion for TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists), has disappeared from the interwebs. • White House: In the final World AIDS Day proclamation of his presidency, Donald Trump made no mention of the disease’s impact on LGBTQ people who make up 69% of all HIV cases in the U.S. • Washington Blade: White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany falsely said Wednesday that Donald Trump was the first to adorn the White House with a red ribbon commemorating World AIDS Day, dodging a question from the Washington Blade on why he omitted any reference to LGBTQ people from his proclamation. Both former President Obama and former President George W. Bush hung red ribbons on the White House during their administrations to mark World AIDS Day.
Huh. @PressSec said the “president honored World Aids Day yesterday in a way no president has before with the red ribbon there [on the WH].” And yet….that’s clearly been done before. Here’s 2012. pic.twitter.com/LvN90u3F6D
• Washington Post: 69-year-old Craig Buescher was in good health and believed the virus wouldn’t be that bad if he came down with it. While he doesn’t know how he ultimately contracted the virus, it was, in fact, quite bad. Nine days in the hospital, as he struggled to breathe, convinced him that not only did he need to be more careful to avoid the virus, but also that he should persuade others to do the same. • Politico: Donald Trump’s own Attorney General, William Barr, has publicly affirmed that there was no evidence of large-scale fraud during this year’s election. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr said, according to the AP. • New York Times: Donald Trump has discussed with advisers whether to grant pre-emptive pardons to his children, to his son-in-law, and to his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, and talked with Mr. Giuliani about pardoning him as recently as last week. • Instinct Magazine: After fifteen years and over one hundred Real Housewives, the city that started it all has given the franchise their first out lesbian Housewife. Real Housewives of Orange County Braunwyn Windham-Burke has come out as a lesbian, proclaiming proudly “it feels so good to be living my truth.”
Checking in on some of my favorite InstaHunks this weekend. What can I say? I like to look at nice things 🙂
First up, Jeff Ferreira says he’s ‘single in Rio de Janeiro,’ but I spy two wine glasses in the pic… Wait a second, though, international performer and former Mr. Continental, Ramon Ventura, appears to be in Rio as well – so maybe we could get the two together?
Tom Ernsting (via Instagram) Tom Ernsting, a professional model and event manager with over 153K followers on Instagram, says internet catfish have used his photos to swindle millions of dollars from unsuspecting women. Ernsting, who is openly gay, told the Detroit Free Press that women he’s never met or communicated with have screamed at him for “ruining their lives” and added, “The stories I’ve heard are insane.”
The woofy silver-haired daddy shared that one woman apparently gave a catfish (posing behind his stolen photos) her credit card information and charged up over $30,000 in purchases. Some women say they’ve put money on gift cards and sent them to him while others claim to have sent him hundreds of dollars so he could travel to see them. But Ernsting says he never reached out to any of the women and he doesn’t have their money. “It’s just crazy,” says Ernsting who feels that the issue seems to have been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. “It definitely took off during COVID because I think people were even more desperate and more lonely.” “It’s sad because they fall in love with me,” he adds.
After college, Ernsting went to work as a sales executive in the hotel industry but eventually moved into modeling and freelance work as an event manager. The current COVID-19 crisis put a stop to much of the event business jobs, but thanks to modeling gigs and his growing Instagram following he’s been paid as a social media influencer as well as booking commercials. The handsome 60-year-old was featured on TMZ this summer as a ‘hot dad alert.’ Ernsting has a theory that catfish use his photos because “I’m attractive enough to draw people in but I’m not threatening, so people use my image to draw people in the door.” While the problem has been going on for a while, he says he still “can’t believe my image is a business for these people.” “They’re making a living off my image,” he said. “They’re probably making more than I ever have.”
The website SocialCatfish.com estimates that “millions of dollars were stolen from fake profiles using Tom’s images since there were so many of them.” The Free Press recommends people Google a person’s name with the word “scammer” if contacted by a stranger on the internet. AARP suggests folks copy/paste the messages “into a search engine and see whether the same words show up on websites devoted to exposing romance scams.” The Federal Trade Commission reports that $201 million was lost in 2019 due to online romance schemes, up from $143 million in 2018. In response, the FTC has created a website – ReportFraud.ftc.gov – where people can report catfish schemes or other scams.
Pedro Gonzalez and Andrew Serkin (image via Instagram) It’s my Halloween Edition of InstaHunk Round-Up. First up, Andrew Serkin and Pedro Gonzalez (above) decided on a ‘classic’ masked-up take for the holiday. The Rock was all set to become “the wisest king of all, Mufasa,” but unfortunately, the costume didn’t fit:
Fitness coach Austin Martin (via Instagram) Checking in on some of my favorite InstaHunks this weekend. First up, fitness coach Austin Martin (above) reminds us all to bundle up for winter. Next, Garrett Magee, of Bravo’s Backyard Envy, took some time to explore Joshua Tree National Park:
I discovered this delightful Instagram account of a hottie who began the account with an imaginary beagle, and then he actually got one named Pasta. Pasta, apparently, loves being pushed around in shopping carts – and Target carts are the “SUV of shopping carts.”
Ray (left) and Zed (right) try out some sexy Halloween costumes (All images via Grindr)Grindr asked real-life YouTube couple Zed and Ray to share some early Halloween fun by trying on some pretty sexy costumes in advance of the October 31 holiday. First up, the men serve up some Sesame Street realness as Cookie Monster and a Cookie snack. Ray is clearly feeling the vibe telling Zed (who looks snack AF), “I’m really ready to eat. Can I bite you?” Next up, the guys are an updated take on Cher and Dionne from the movie Clueless. Trust and believe, these guys do NOT wear polyester hair. “As if!” We knew some Disney characters had to be in the mix and sure enough, check out this sassy version of Jasmine and Aladdin. The men laugh as they try out a few lines from the animated film after scoping each other out: “A whole new world!!” Ray and Zed bring some swagger to Tigger and Pooh as Zed keeps telling Ray, “I really like this one on you.” Zed’s Pooh knows some honey when he sees it. The wonderful thing about Tiggers is Tiggers are wonderful things. A shirtless take on Troll dolls puts the men in a party mood as the guys don huge colorful wigs and face glitter. “Give me a Troll kiss,” says Zed, and Ray leans in for the smooch. There’s more in the clip, so hit the play button below. And make sure you hang in until the end to see which costumes the guys vibe with. You can follow Ray and Zed on YouTube here and on Instagram here.
(image via Instagram) For the most part, it’s pretty safe to say the gays like Britney Spears and the gays like eye-candy. So, it’s almost a twofer that Brit’s man, Sam Asghari, is easy on the eyes. Like a lot of folks, we’ve occasionally clicked on his Instagram thirst-traps for momentary brain breaks. But, for some reason – and I still don’t know what it is – I was surprised when a Twitter user pointed out that Asghari had ‘Liked’ Instagram posts by Donald Trump. Sure enough, I went to the Trumpster’s Instagram (which I never do) and, when someone you follow ‘Likes’ a post their name shows up, there it was. Huh. How about that…
Now, I want to be clear that a ‘Like’ on an Instagram post doesn’t signal Britney Spears’s “support” for Trump. This isn’t about bashing or calling out Britney. And I’m not saying this is the biggest thing in the world. It’s not like he doesn’t get to like whatever political figure he wants. But for some reason, it did make me pause. Maybe since Britney has spoken out in support of Dreamers, and the Trump administration has gone after Dreamers to such a huge extent, it seems surprising? Maybe we assume couples tend to be like-minded? Or Asghari’s Insta-posts go for that ‘uplifting’ kind of tilt that seems so the opposite of Trump? When folks noticed the ‘Likes,’ Asghari responded in his Stories by making a joke writing, “I get soo many questions about politics and who I’m voting for…Let me tell you how much I know about politics! I think donkey and elephant both need to workout badddd.” He added, “I’m in no position to point out and make statements about politics.” He went on to encourage folks to “do your own research and vote based on that information not based on someone opinion that barely knows who the president is.” (screen capture) Fair enough, although it seems like a dodge. I did wonder, though, does Asghari really get a lot of questions about politics and who he’s voting for? Or was he dancing around the Donald in the room? I’m not demonizing Asghari, but the moment did move me to step back and ponder (again) how being good-looking gets some people a pass from some folks. All you gays that keep liking Aaron Schock posts, I’m looking at you. A couple of years ago, I was interviewing an InstaHunk for my podcast regarding a project he was working on, and in the course of the chat, it became clear through a couple of comments that he was a Trump supporter. And he remarked that ‘Russian interference in the 2016 election didn’t really happen.’ While it took me aback at the time before I posted the episode I checked to see if he was good with that being included and he said ‘yes.’ Sure enough, I got emails from listeners – who knew I’d featured the guy on my blog in the past – with some question marks and raised eyebrows. I guess, in our own heads, we make a lot of assumptions about who folks are in their internet Insta-Lives and are surprised when things don’t align? Who knows why Brit’s guy liked the posts? I know I don’t. But I am paying a little more attention to who ‘Likes’ what on the Gram of Insta and then considering why I might be following them. (h/t Boy Culture)
Out Olympian Gus Kenworthy posted a photo on his Instagram while mentioning he’s looking to update his LinkedIn account and needed new resume pics. Umm…woof. In the photo, snapped by photog Brian Kaminski, Gus is resting in repose in a pair of short shorts, washboard abs on display along with the perfect amount of fur. The pic was accompanied by the tongue-in-cheek caption, “My friend @briankaminski was kind enough to come over yesterday and take some pictures for my LinkedIn.” Can I just say, “You’re hired, Gus!” Kaminski also shared a pic from the shoot teasing there are more to come. 
We knew some Disney characters had to be in the mix and sure enough, check out this sassy version of Jasmine and Aladdin. The men laugh as they try out a few lines from the animated film after scoping each other out: “A whole new world!!” 
Ray and Zed bring some swagger to Tigger and Pooh as Zed keeps telling Ray, “I really like this one on you.” Zed’s Pooh knows some honey when he sees it. The wonderful thing about Tiggers is Tiggers are wonderful things. 
A shirtless take on Troll dolls puts the men in a party mood as the guys don huge colorful wigs and face glitter. “Give me a Troll kiss,” says Zed, and Ray leans in for the smooch. 
There’s more in the clip, so hit the play button below. And make sure you hang in until the end to see which costumes the guys vibe with. You can follow Ray and Zed 
